I have memories of my dad making a concoction for one of our cats, using smelts as the primary ingredient, it was a bit of a production. It was only this one particular cat who he made food for and I don’t remember the reason why. My memory was jogged after viewing the entertaining and well made video below, which I really enjoyed watching
3 Likes
Haha, mine will attack the raw food during the preparation already, instead of patiently waiting. After eating he won’t be there anymore to watch me washing. LOL, enjoyed the film, thanks.
1 Like
Similar scenario would play out here I’m afraid 
I have a friend who put a lot of energy and research into making homemade food for her cats.
Drove her crazy that they would wander down hill to the local miniature golf course and pig out on the cheap food the putt-putt people put out for the local feral cats.
1 Like
I was at the butcher the other day. One of the customers was chatting with the butcher. One of them mentioned that a person bought $300 worth of meat for his dog’s birthday. I wonder how and if they prep the meat.
I would be happy to be his dog.
1 Like
Raw, complete with bones, would certainly be the healthiest and even then, it is extremely difficult to formulate a well-balanced home-cooked diet for dogs or cats. Well-meaning owners can harm their pets’ longterm health if they don’t feed at least some quality brand commercial ration. People who insist that their pet gets only home-made food and is in perfect health don’t realize that Rex and Boots are likely also eating rodents and birds.
3 Likes
I used to work for a natural foods market. After the pet food issues in the 2000’s we had to get a dedicated meat grinder just for pet food. Probably sold as much meat for pets as we did for people.
1 Like
What brand of meat grinder did you get?
I was refering to the commercial grinder the stores meat department had. No recollection of the brand but it was huge and a bear to clean.
I cook for my dog daily.
Sorta.
She is on prescription kibble due to bladder stones a few years ago. To make it more palatable, I add a tablespoon or so of some protein, a couple of tbsps of water and nuke it long enough to take the chill off and make a bit of “gravy”. Then I mix the kibble in to coat. I use leftover chicken, raw or canned salmon or tuna, even scrambled egg. 
Just trying to make it interesting for her.
Yeah.
I really need to get out more. 
3 Likes
And I’ll bet your dog appreciates the extra care. I did the same and was glad to do it. That’s not saying I should also get out more. 
1 Like
My chocolate lab has several food allergies (chicken, egg, fish, grains), so she get a good limited ingredient grain free dry food (lamb and sweet potato), but I also make homemade wet food to mix into it.
The combination depends on what I’ve got at home, and what I need to use up, but my normal formula is beef soup bones and/or rib bones (depending on what was on sale or in the freezer) and water. I simmer that for a couple hours, and if the bones don’t have a lot of meat, I also toss in some cubed beef (again, whatever was on sale). I pull the meat and bones out, and add in red lentils, and cook that down until mushy. I pull off all the meat from the bones, scoop out any marrow in the soup bones and dice up the beef and throw that back into the pot while the lentils are cooking. Then I add in veggies – chopped carrots, peas, green beans, kale, spinach… just depends on what I have. I also add in a teaspoon or so of ground turmeric. I let it cook down until thick, then I cool it and put some into the fridge to use, and the rest gets split into freezer bags to use for the next couple weeks.
When we feed the dog, we add a rounded tablespoon or so of this food, and some warm water to loosen it up and mix it with the dry food.
2 Likes
I cook something similar. I am going to add lentils and turmeric to my dog’s food. Thanks!
2 Likes
She loves it. Some days the kids get lazy and just try to give her dry food, and she’ll walk over to the fridge and sit there until someone gets out the wet food and mixes it into the dry!
1 Like
i have 2 pomeranians who were the pickiest eater until I found the right formula for them. We tried different commercial kibbles, blue buffalo, taste of the wild and aunt lucy’s freeze dried vegetable mixed with raw meat. They stuck their nose up in the air. Finally, we give themfor breakfast plain raw meat, mostly venison and eye round beef that I grind myself using an STX grinder. I am not mixing Aunt Lucy’s freeze dried vegetable to that. In the evening, they eat different varieties of Orijen kibbles . Cannot stick with one variety as they get tired of it. They also love cheese, duck breast from D’artagnan or duck legs from maple duck , and once a month, they get grilled chicken liver as I have to give them their heartgard which when mixed with meat, they manage to spit the heartgard out but when I cut up the heart guard up into very fine pieces, mix it with pulverized chicken liver, they gobble the liver so fast not tasting the heartgard . They also love pasta with shrimp and costco pesto but i recently found out that they should not eat pesto bec of garlic. Early on, trying different kinds of food that he refused to eat, I would give him chicken liver as a last resort. He developed pancreatitis ! So, that is only given once a month now. Raw meat, for breakfast, sometimes scrambled eggs, and Orijen kibbles for dinner but that is going to be a problem soon as Chewy is discontinuing their affiliation with Orijen.
Chewy 
1 Like
My cat is a keen meat eater, he prefers Applaw more than Orijen. Maybe you can have a try for your dog, it has high percentage of meat too.
@chowdom
Did you see this one too from the same author? I have to say, the food is good for me too! I’m amazed at the knife technique!
2 Likes
The worst thing I ever saw was a customer that came into our cash and carry weekly and bought tons of produce for his dog. Yes, his dog was “vegetarian” just as he was. We tried to discuss it but got nowhere. I still feel sad about that…never got to see the pup but it couldn’t have been good news.
2 Likes
